Made Men: The True Rise-And-Fall Story of a New Jersey Mob Family by Greg B. Smith

Author:Greg B. Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Organized Crime, Organized crime - New Jersey, Murder, True Crime, Organized crime investigation - New Jersey, General, Mafia - New Jersey, New Jersey, Fiction
ISBN: 9780425185513
Publisher: Berkley Books
Published: 2003-02-04T06:46:10+00:00

10

June 25, 1998

Joey O was swapping Mafia gossip with Ralphie—who was in, who was out, all the stars in the DeCavalcante constellation—when he made a little joke. He said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if I disappear.” He made the little joke in such a way that it could be translated as not a little joke. He was beginning to see where he stood in the food chain.

Ralphie was not interested in Joey O’s problems. He was trolling for probable cause. By the summer of 1998, just six months after Ralphie Guarino first began taping conversations for the bureau, the FBI had accumulated so much probable cause they were now thinking of doing something that had never been done before—indicting an entire crime family. They would do it in stages, but they would do it nonetheless. Vinny Palermo, the man viewed as most likely to succeed, was now well within the bureau’s reach. And by now Ralphie was comfortable ask

ing Joey O just about any question imaginable and Joey volunteered everything. He told Ralphie that Vinny Ocean had been officially promoted to the leadership committee, which meant he had to reassign all his crew members to different captains. He explained how one soldier had been promoted, how another had been passed over, and how nobody wanted a third. Joey even used nautical references.

“Everybody’s gotta go to different skippers,” Joey said. “Vinny’s not supposed to have nobody under him. Nobody wants Anthony.”

“What about us?” Ralphie asked.

“No, we’re still together. No, anybody who’s straightened out guys gotta go to different skippers.”

“You mean the guy second-in-command can’t have nobody under him?”

“Can’t have nobody under him. Well, everybody’s under him. But these guys only gotta answer to a captain first, then him.”

“So you’re gonna be with Joe now?” Ralphie asked.

“No, we’re still with Vinny,” Joey said. “No, it’s not us. It’s everybody. It has nothing to do with us.”

He was talking as if everything was on track, but uncertainty permeated his every word. It had reached the point where no one knew what he was going to say or do next.

His life was a train wreck waiting to happen. He was living in Staten Island with two daughters from his first marriage, his second wife, Rosemary, and her mother. He now openly referred to his first wife as “the asshole” and his second as “the witch.” His older daughter had come to him asking for money for sessions with a psychologist. He refused and told her to move out. He slapped her and she called the police. Then he thought better of it and decided that both daughters should move out. The FBI recorded him talking to a neighbor about his problems.

“I told [my ex-wife] the other fucking night, come and get your daughters,” he said. “I can’t take it no more.”

“What’d she say?” the neighbor asked.

“She said, ‘Oh, you gotta understand.’ Understand what? You’re living nice on a nice lake somewhere, and you left me this responsibility. I’m fifty years old. I can’t fucking breathe, I’m dying over here.

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